How to improve someone’s diet — a UX case study – UX Collective

Stage 5: Test

“Lessons” Concept

We learned that our “Lessons” concept — a service that gave people a structured framework to learn about what they want, at their own pace — did help people to expand their knowledge.

We also learned:

Some participants had previously tried to learn by themselves, unsuccessfully, but found the way we structured and presented information to be more useful.

Participants tended to refer back to the lessons after completing the study, helping them to maintain diet changes after 2 weeks. Some of these people had made unhealthy diet choices but were aware of them, which they weren’t before, indicating that knowledge had been retained after the study.

“I have eaten lean meats and fish. I have swapped unhealthy snacks like cake and biscuits for healthy ones like popcorn and seeds. I have eaten many portions of vegetables such as broccoli, leeks and kale.”

— A participant in the “Lessons” experiment

“Learn By Doing” Concept

The results of our “Learn By Doing” experiment — testing a service designed to convince people to try a healthy meal by giving them free ingredients and instructions for how to cook it— indicated that giving free ingredients was effective at helping people overcome the most common barriers to adopting a healthy diet. All participants either did cook their recipe box meals again or showed strong intent to buy ingredients in their next shop in order to cook them again.

We also learned that the service both helped people learn and feel more confident — two of the three influencers of behaviour change (the other is importance – see the Mojo behavioural design framework above). Participants were excited to share photos with us and some even decided to share their photos on Instagram or with family and friends. These participants commented on the positive support they received as a result and the contribution this had to their confidence level.

Photo shared by one of the participants in the “Learn By Doing” experiment

Interestingly, people also commented that the supplied ingredients and images of meals included in the instructions helped them to learn about portion control.

And many mentioned feeling inspired to exercise and walk more as a result of having enjoyed cooking and eating healthy meals.